Cross the Ocean

Blake Sanders, Duke of Wexford, has spent his life being a model aristocrat and avoiding scandal.  Overnight his carefully structured world falls apart when his wife leaves him, his children stop obeying him, and a visiting American woman challenges his views, causing him to rethink everything he holds dear.

Miss Gertrude Finch is taking a break from campaigning for women’s suffrage in America to visit relatives in England.  She finds Blake to be self-involved, overbearing, and entirely too attractive.  They engage in spirited arguments and one night of passion before Gert returns to her ranch across the ocean.  Blake should be glad to see her leave and his life return to normal, but instead he can’t help wishing she had seen him as a different man – a better man.

Holly Bush managed to create two tangible characters who must accept the truths about themselves before they can connect with other people.  Blake is more concerned with being “proper” than the actual feelings of his friends and family, and Gert is opinionated and incredibly stubborn.  In fact, the author works so hard to point out their imperfections that one wonders why they are attracted to each other in the first place. The scene detailing their first coupling is a bit unbelievable, but it provides the motivation for the second half of the book.  By turns silly and touching, this is a story about the transformative power of love.

Leslie Stokes